RAIL accident investigators have urged Network Rail and Arriva Trains Wales to make improvements after an incident on a level crossing – the fourth in 11 years.

A train from Aberystwyth to Machynlleth passed over the crossing at Llanbadarn near Aberystwyth while the barriers were still raised.

Fortunately there were no vehicles or pedestrians on the crossing at the time and no one was hurt in the incident which happened just before 10pm on June 19 last year.

This was the fourth incident at Llanbadarn since 2001.

In October 2008 a train came within seconds of ploughing into a gas tanker and a dad pushing his child in a pram.

A detailed report on the latest incident, published by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), revealed the driver of a train leaving Aberystwyth must press a switch on the platform to start a 10 minute timer.

This timer does not activate the lights or barriers at Llanbadarn which only starts when the train reaches a “strike-in point” within the 10 minute limit.

But a delay in the train’s movement meant it set off late from Aberystwyth.

Shortly afterwards the timer “timed out”.

An investigation found the driver did not realise a warning light was flashing red and drove past it.

“The immediate cause of the incident was that the driver did not notice the crossing indicator was flashing red until it was too late to stop at the crossing.

“CCTV evidence confirms at the time of the incident the indicator was flashing red and the crossing was operating as designed.

“The driver did not apply the brakes until four seconds after passing the sighting board.

Had he applied the brakes at the time he reached the sighting board, he would have been approximately 50 metres further from the crossing in the braking sequence and would have stopped 46 metres before the crossing,” the report said.

Investigators said Network Rail should “develop an engineered safeguard” to reduce the risk of trains passing over automatic crossings when they have not operated and remove the need for a train driver to operate the crossing sequence before departing from Aberystwyth.

The report also recommends Arriva Trains Wales should carry out a human factors analysis and risk assessment of the workload of drivers departing Aberystwyth station.

Arriva Trains Wales operations and safety director Mike Tapscott said: “We fully take on board the recommendations from the Rail Accident Investigation Bureau and are currently working to implement them.”